Democratic Debate

The Democratic debate just finished. What became clear to me is that I do not want Hillary Clinton in the White House. She is a politician. She is a statesman. She belongs in the Senate, and that's where I want her to stay.

Barak Obama will make a great president. Someday. The sad truth is that the next president has to be willing to get his hands dirty. I admire and respect his desire to maintain the high road, but if a candidate cannot speak frankly and directly in a campaign debate, I do not believe he can speak frankly and directly once in office. And frankly, we're facing a transportation crisis in Chicago and he is missing in action on this issue.

Richardson, Dodd, and Kucinich have virtually rendered themselves irrelevent.

That leaves me with Biden and Edwards. And here's where my dilemma comes in. I actually believe that Biden would make a better president. But I believe that Edwards is more electable, particularly in the primary. So, do I vote my principles and vote for Biden, and thereby help insure a Clinton candidacy, or do I vote for my number two choice and go with Edwards who I think can beat Clinton in the primary?

Everyone talks about the election being decided by Iowa and New Hampshire, but the truth is that this election will be decided in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Just like the last elections.

I've decided that if I had to vote today, I'd want a Biden/Obama ticket. That's the ticket that I think would be best for the country. I think an Edwards/Obama ticket could win.

Dear Dominic's

Dear Dominic's:

I am writing to you today to tell you that the reason I shop at your store on Howard Avenue is because it is the only supermarket within walking distance from my home. In fact, I'd hazard to say that better than half of the people who shop in that store do so because of the proximity to their homes. Yes, you have a mammoth parking lot, but I have to say that I've never seen it full.

With that said, I'd like to encourage you to take a look at the clientele of your store on Howard Avenue. In particular, you might just stand at one of the check-out lines and notice how many of your customers are paying with a Link card. In case you're not familiar with the Link card, it is Illinois's food-stamp program. I can tell you that virtually every time I've been to your store, the person in front of me and the person behind me pays with this card.

Now, I ask you: do you think these customers care about mood lighting in a grocery store? Yes, the apples gleam and look quaint in their rustic baskets, but does that manufactured charm really justify charging a dollar and a quarter for each apple? Am I really paying four dollars for a gallon of milk because that's how much you need to charge to make a fair profit, or is it to pay for the soft track lighting that makes my reflection from the cooler look ten years younger? Do you really think that romantic lighting is necessary for the customers who wander to the back of the store to purchase their forty ounces?

I've been shopping at your store for nearly five years. In that time I've established a pattern. I know where everything is. Or, I knew where everything was. Now I have to wander up and down the aisles in a daze looking for the staples that usually stock my kitchen. And for the record, why do you not carry Coco Wheats? Beef boullion cubes? Non-aerosol Scrubbing Bubbles? Why don't you carry the boxes of frozen broccoli? I've purchased these things in the past, and now suddenly you've stopped carrying them?

And while we're on the topic, what is up with the meat department? The meat literally glows with all the dye and the new track lighting. And that dye must really taste good and be very expensive because I can walk around the corner to the little independent vegetable stand and buy the same cut of meat for nearly thirty percent less.

On the plus side, I have to say that conceptually I'm against genetically engineered food, but in practice I've become addicted to those apple/pear cross breeds. But, for nearly a month you were out of stock and I went through withdrawal right there in your produce deparment. But I looked radiant under the new lights while I did it.

Thank you for your kind attention and patience.

More Interviewing

I had four interviews today. Three were for the job with the aged blond I mentioned previously. I was heartened because I thought that she didn't conduct a comprehensive interview she must be relying on someone else to do it.

I was wrong.

The three women who interviewed me today were not properly prepared to conduct an interview. They were sent in to see if they liked me, to see if the vice presidents would like me. If I hired only people I liked, most of the jobs I've filled would still be empty. Of the three, the woman who had been with the company asked the most relevant questions -- two to be exact: "Tell me about how you dealt with a difficult co-worker." and "Are you available for overtime?" The other two women spent their entire time alloted to them telling me about themselves. Of course they both loved me because I smiled and nodded and laughed in all the appropriate places. That's what years of working with boring, bad actors teaches you: how to appear to be enthralled while composing a grocery list in your head.

Those, however, were inquisitions compared to the fourth interview of the day, which took place over the phone. The conversation wasn't so much an interview as it was an introduction to an interview. The guy told me, and this seemed to be the only reason for the phone interview, that they only hire smart people who read books. I've cleared that hurdle. I'm reading Michele Foucault. The only way I could improve upon that is to say that I was reading it in a German tranlation that I'd done myself from the original French. He went on to say that the last HR person had had the nerve to present a candidate who admitted that his favorite TV show was Survivor. He told me that comment instantly ended the interview. I responded with, "Well, you know, my favorite show is Dancing with the Stars. That, apparently, provides superior intellectual stimulation because I've been invited into the office for a face-to-face interview.

So, I'd better cut this short so that I can revise my latest theoroms of quantum physics and identify a genome.

Lazy Days of Autumn

Sometimes I wish I was a whole lot smarter or a whole lot dumber. I went to the interview yesterday and all I could think was, "You're a lunatic." The woman was near sixty with tousled, waist-length, honey-blond hair, smudged, red lipstick, and blue-black rings around her eyes. When she asked me if I had any questions, I had to bite my tongue not to ask, "Who do you think you're kidding?"

But, I didn't ask that. I was polite and charming, without trying to appear too eager. I think I managed to act surprised by the questions: "What are your strengths?" "What are your weaknesses?" Those are questions that come up in interviews with department managers. The HR director is supposed to have better, more insightful questions than that. At least I always do. I felt like the entire interview I was depleting my IQ by half with every question. If it had gone on much longer I probably would have had to start drooling.

Whereas if I'd been smarter I could have found some profundity to the questions, and yet answered in pithy, multilayered answers that would resonate through her swirling mind throughout the day and continually startled her throughout the day with my brilliance.

So, the interview went well enough. I should be called back to meet the staff sometime next week, but if I'm not that recruiter has me lined up with another job. It's the job I'd prefer, but the recruiter seems to be holding it hostage, waiting to see if I land this other one. In the meantime, I was contacted for a third position that would be more suited to me than the other two. They sent an e-mail inviting me to visit their website and asking if I'd be interested in interviewing. I responded with a suggested time in my busy, busy schedule and we'll see how that plays out.

But frankly, I don't know how I would ever have time for a job. How is it these days just seem to evaporate? And it's not like I'm lolling in bed until noon everyday. I'm usually up by 7:00, and before I know it, it's 4:00 and I haven't eaten anything. And I'm not even sacrificing my days to the television. I can just endlessly entertain myself on the Internet and reading and putzing around the house. It's a disgrace.

To the Point

The first time I became aware of women's shoes, I had to have been about two or three years old. One of my mother's friends had come over for coffee and I was playing on the floor with a truck or something. I think the friend's name was Arlene, and she was wearing a black skirt and black pumps. I was fascinated by the sharpness of the shoes, with a pointed toe and long, stiletto heel. She sat with her legs crossed and I remember being transfixed by that dangling foot. Occasionally Arlene would let the shoe slip off and dangle from her toe.

My mother, her mother, nor my father's mother wore those types of shoes. My maternal grandmother practically invented the orthopedic oxford and she had two pair, black and brown. My paternal grandmother worked in a dress shop, so being on her feet all day comfort was her biggest concern. I also remember her being on the eternal quest for the perfect "navy" or "bone" shoe. I know she went to her grave with that unfulfilled mission. My mother had a couple of pairs of pointy shoes, but when the styles changed to a chunkier heel, she clung to that style like a crack addict at a bible camp. When those shoes went out of style, my mother gave up all hope of being stylish.

So, my fascination with high heels had to be satisfied by television and movies. In particular, I seem to remember not being able to look at anything but the feet of the Bond women. Women in peril in heels. That's what I thought was their natural state.

The fascination faded, but when I went away to college I remember a fellow student who wore nothing but those pointy heels. She had them in every color imaginable. One January, when I quite literally could not afford socks and had a big hole in my nylon running shoe, there was Sue skittering across the ice-covered campus in her three-hundred dollar pair of heels. I asked her about that, and she said that her Achilles tendon had tightened and she couldn't wear anything but heels.

I can't say I thought much about high heels until a decade later when I was cast in a show, playing two characters. In the first act I was a quite, Bible reading father with a brother dying of AIDS, and in the second act I was that brother's drag-queen lover. There were two scenes in which I was to appear in drag.

Now, in Chicago theater, budgets are very tight and each director has his or her priorities on how to spend their pennies. I've always opted for costumes, since the actor is presumably what the audience is looking at most of the time. This director, however, opted for the set. That meant the costumes were pulled either from the actor's closet or the company's stock. Since no one expected me to have drag costumes, they pulled a red acetate caftan with marabou collar, white sling-backs my mother would have sold her soul for, and a snarled, black Cher wig. I've known a few drag queens and not one of them would have used that get up to clean the toilet. I politely offered to come up with my own.

While I'm quite tall, I actually have standard sized feet. Finding heels that fit were not the problem. Finding shoes that didn't say, "big, ugly, fat girl" was a different story. Apparently, if your shoe size is larger than nine, shoe makers assume your feet are so far from your eyes you won't notice how ugly they are. I made it a religious quest looking for the highest heel I could. I began to understand my grandmother on a level most men never reach.

I found both pairs of shoes at Payless. The first were a simple black pump, but they had a two-and-a-half inch heel. They were the largest size they carried and I slipped my feet into them as if they'd been made for me. The second pair were a lower heel, but electric pink. Together, I think they cost less than twenty-five dollars.

Did you know that when you try on shoes, you should actually stand up in them and walk around? I hit on this concept the first time I had to navigate the many levels of the set in those shoes. I took two steps in my shiny black pumps and marvelled that there were not women rioting in the streets over fashions that virtually required these de Sadian treasures. As my costume came together, I became aware of the fact that I was wearing more articles of clothing...hose, girdle, bra, slip, dress, wig...virtually every part of my body was covered except my face, neck, and arms, and yet I felt naked and vulnerable. The fabric of the costumes was filmy and I was unsure of my balance in the heels. I had to balance a wig and earrings.

The first scene was less than five minutes and that had the most elaborate costume. The scene had to be restaged so that I did not have to traverse steps, for fear of breaking a limb. The second scene was a rehearsal scene of my big number. Since it was a torchy ballad, I opted to perform it ala Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys, writhing on the floor in simulated sexual apoplexy. Anything that did not require me to stand.

And of course, that may be the point to those shoes. Beyond the obvious sexual politics, there does seem to be a real political movement in which women are subjugated and kept off balance. We, as enlightened Americans are for the first time seriously considering a female president. Yet we are at war in a region that has had female rulers long before we have. As part of justification for a war against "Islamic fascists" we point to the requirement that women not appear in public without a burka. Yet, our social and stylistic standards in this country are not badges of honor. Heels, diets, make-up...American women have much more rigid standards than Iraqi women. Failure to conform may not result in physical death, (although attempts at conformity might) a woman who does not submit to this stylistic code faces a much more subtle death.

I recently worked with a woman who was very successful in a "man's" career. In a field that hinges on personality, she flirted and build solid relationships as a woman in a man's world. It also didn't hurt that she delivered. I knew her at the zenith of her career, just as she turned sixty. At that age, the coquetry that is almost subliminal at thirty, is almost grotesque and she hadn't really learned any other way to interact. In recent years she's actually lost clients because she made them uncomfortable. Yet she has a sterling record and continues to set the standard for her male colleagues.

When I started working with her, we needed to hire a bi-lingual web designer, who also could troubleshoot hardware issues. It would be easier to find an orangutan who could dance swan lake. Still, I found one. And the candidate was a woman to boot. She spoke Spanish, had designed award-winning websites, and built her own computers. And her asking salary was ten thousand dollars less than my budget. I'd hit the HR manager's jackpot.

My female executive, the one who had cornered me in an office to detail all of the humiliations she'd born as an aging woman in a young man's world, rejected this candidate because she wasn't "attractive." She wouldn't present well to the clients. The woman's orthopedic oxfords were sited as an example of her lack of panache.

So, not only do we have the systemic subjugation of women, we have women who have survived and thrived in spite of the social and professional obstacles, using these same standards against other women. Women who pole dance as a work out, use those their pointy heels as daggers against women who don't.

Thank God in a man's world it's just dog-eat-dog, because the bitches are crazy.

An Intellectual Spectrum

I struggle all morning to understand Michele Foucault, reviewing definitions of key terms and applying them to his text so that I can become comfortable that I'm gaining some understanding of what he's written, and looking up obscure philosophical figures, who he tosses off as if EVERYONE has heard of them (i.e. Carl Von Clausewitz) If someone writes to me and tells me they simply can't believe that I've never heard of Clausewitz, I'm going to put in my application at McDonald's and call it a day.

Anyway, in an effort to prevent myself from spraining my brain I logged into AOL to check my e-mail. I was confronted with this headline, "New Love Interest for 'Grey's' Doc?"

I began to feel mold form on my brain.

The Student's Nightmare

When I was in high school, I was strongly encouraged to consider a career in opera in spite of the fact that I could not read a note of music. My voice teacher told me that most opera singers didn't read music and that I shouldn't worry about it. He made me promise to audition for the honors choir when I got to Drake, even though I'd declared to the mighty Zeus and Meryl Streep that I was studying the DRAMATIC arts.

Still, in the first week I sauntered into the audition room with my song. The director set the music aside, handed me some sheet music, hit a note on the piano, sat back, and said, "Begin."

"I can't read music."

"Try."

It was a disaster and as a result I avoided all things musical for the next three years. Our department was doing Jesus Christ Superstar, which was requiring a cast of zillions and virtually everyone was auditioning. I developed the worst sore throat of my life and laryngitis on the day of my audition, yet not wanting to be left out of the show that was virtually everyone in the world was going to be part of, I found the most remote piano practice room and spent half an hour literally screaming my voice back to life. I walked into the audition, croaked out the song and landed a lead role. The following summer I landed a role in the summer musical, and that fall the musical was chosen for me. I turned it down, frustrating the director, but we were doing Macbeth, and I was an acTOR!

I remember my senior evaluation as I was leaving Drake. One of the directors congratulated me on my burgeoning self confidence and took credit for my discovered singing talents. Never mind the fact that I'd won several competitions in high school -- he'd developed my voice. That was the first time I remember exercising tact (it happens so rarely) and I simply smiled.

To this day, I am pretty confident walking into a singing audition. I may not be what they're looking for, but I know that I'm not going to embarrass myself. And my high school vocal teacher was right. With the exception of a rather limp audition for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, no one has ever cared that I could not read music. Still, I remember that feeling of being hollowed out when I was asked to sight read music. Instantly I felt as if I'd been wretching for three straight days and there was nothing left inside, all vital organs expelled and lying on the floor.

That's the feeling I got when I decided that today was the day I would begin the composition of my statement of purpose for my PhD programs. There are precious few guidleines on what a statement of purpose even is. All I could find is that Yale wants between 500 and 1000 words. I have four: I. Want. To. Teach.

Still, it's that feeling of having a weakness exposed, judged, and discarded that seems to be preventing me from moving forward. I'm standing in the wings of some Broadway theater, waiting to audition, and Harvey Fierstein, Hugh Jackman, and Kristin Chenowith have just finished giving their monologues and singing their show-stopping songs.

"You're up."

The View in the Mirror

They say that the best revenge is living well. Of course, that raises the question, "Is it revenge if the other person has no idea how well you're doing?"

As could probably be expected, the company from which I was dismissed nearly three months ago now is not doing well. I don't have the details, but there were two major concerns at the time I left, both involing websites. The prevailing opinions were that both websites absolutely must be kept updated with "bleeding-edge" information. I actually was spearheading one of the projects -- even though it had nothing to do with human resources -- because a) it was deemed critical, and b) it had been stalled for months. When I left there were actually three drafts of potential websites. All that was needed was to push the go button.

With the exception of the removal of the names of those employees who were in the latest round of layoffs, there has been nothing done with the website. It is still the embarrassment it was.

The other website represented the single significant source of revenue and required daily updates to generate interest from sponsors. It was last updated a month ago. Now, it's possible that the company went in another direction, but as of the day before I left financial survival hinged on this website being at least moderately successful.

Of course, gloating is so unattractive. But I truthfully can't help but feeling that as inconvenient as the timing might have been, leaving when I did really was the best thing for me. I've been spared at least three months of bickering and accusations and complaining.

Instead, I've been building my own business. And at the risk of appearing less than modest I must say that I'm thrilled with the recent interest that has been expressed. I have three consultations on the calendar for next week. Activity on my website has been growing steadily and nearly half the people who are visiting my website are bookmarking it. While it's way, way too early to claim success and anything certainly could happen to upset the apple cart, I'd say that things are looking pretty good.

The agony is that I really, really, REALLY want the people at my former company to know that if they'd only listened to me, if they'd only stopped fighting with one another we could be successful. I want them to know that while they are trying to fling one another from the Titanic, I'm sitting in my life raft sipping cognac and watching the spectacle.

It's petty, I know, and absolutely not me at my warmest, most loving and nurturing. But I really, really, REALLY deserve to have them know that I was not defeated; that in fact this may not be the last laugh, but it's the one I got and it's pretty darn loud. The people who remained with the company are all talented, smart people, and when this venture does finally go under -- as it will -- they'll all be fine. I really, really, REALLY just want them to say that I was right.

Waiting to Reap What is Sewn

I have to admit that for the last week I've been in something of a funk. It happens. I was looking at the world and my place in it and wondering what was the point.

I've always said that the greatest decision of my life had been to go away to college. If I hadn't done that, I said, I would have lived my life in my father's basement and worked part-time at the local truck stop washing dishes. I'd be about six hundred pounds and be the sharpest wit in the fantasy Broadway chat rooms.

But, I escaped to Des Moines, completed my degree and then escaped to Chicago where I've had several careers -- all of them pretty interesting, actually -- and I'm about to embark on yet another. While there are deficiencies in my life, things I'd like to change, by and large I'm pretty happy with my accomplishments. True, I'm not a world-recognized authority on anything...yet...but there aren't many people around who've done all that I've done.

If it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn a little too loudly, you may be right. It's compensation for spending the last week focused on my failures and shortcomings. Does anyone bat a thousand? I think not. Yet, I'd say that I'm batting better than .300, and I'm very proud of that.

Frustration comes when I don't see immediate results. I'd be a terrible farmer. I'd toss the seeds on the ground on Monday and on Wednesday I'd want to see sprouts. The torture comes in resisting the urge to dig up the seeds and scatter something else. But, if we keep this agricultural metaphor going, what I've actually done is some crop rotation. My focus has been on the business. The seedlings are beginning to break ground in that field. Now the focus has to be on the job search.

But, you say, if you're starting your own business why do you need a job? Frankly because I need security. I need health insurance. I'm completely willing to take a job that pays less than my market value in order to nurture the business along. It's an investment that will pay off. I no longer feel the need to scale to the top of the corporate ladder. My self image is no longer defined by that type of success.

So, in the last week revising my resume has been my focus. It has been an ugly, painful thing that's involved discussions with "employment marketing professionals" and reading all kinds of books. I've spent long hours trying to generate enthusiasm and interest in the types of jobs that fit my resume. I've worried about the warts on my resume and allowed myself to wonder if I'll ever get another job.

Then I put the book down and realized that I was fretting about landing a job that I didn't want. I want the salary. I want the benefits. I want the security. I don't want the job. So, I need to decide what type of job I wanted. Then I realized that I know what kind of job I want, I just haven't looked for it, assuming that I don't qualify.

That's when the book started to make sense. I need to target my resume to the jobs I want, not the jobs I think I qualify for. With that realization I'm energized again. Problem: these jobs don't pay what I want. Reality: neither does unemployment. So, the new seeds are beginning to be sewn and these are seeds that I know will germinate pretty quickly.

So, that leaves us with the third field. School. That's a rocky field and one potentially littered with land mines. I want to get into a good PhD program, primarily because I'm a credential snob. But I'm terrified that I'm not good enough. Of course, there's only one way to find that out, and that's to simply shut up, do the work and apply. The deadline for those applications is December 31, but I'm going to get all of my ducks in a row this month.

Finally, there's the writing, which hasn't just taken a back seat, but has been left standing in the driveway in the oil spot. Shameful. But I can say that I've been trying to view my work as objectively and I have to say that I think there is some quality there. It is publishable. I've just got to start getting it to publishers.

I know, I know, I've been saying that for months, if not years. But slow as it's been, there has been progress on that front as well. I have about a quarter of the collection ready to go.

But I wonder if I've made the right decision sometimes. Wouldn't it have been so much easier to live in my father's basement? Easier, yes. As much fun? Absolutely not.

White Lies

There's a great family story about my sister taking my nephew to the doctor when he was about four years old. They were waiting in a crowded waiting room and had been for some time. My nephew, tired of the games he'd brought with him decided to make friends in the office. He walked up to a woman and said, "You're not pretty."

Critical thinking is a family trait. However tact and diplomacy is a hard-learned skill in our family. As my sister tells the story, she sat in the waiting room pretending not to know the obnoxious child until after the aesthetically assesed woman had left, presumably in search of paper bag.

My reading is leading me to Castiglione's The Courtier, one of the first serious works in Western literature to expound the virtues of the art of hiding artifice. While to a point I have that skill, to a greater degree than many people actually realize, I've never seen the real value in it.

In my last job I was working with a vice president, who was having difficulty with a senior member of the staff. This senior staff member had some obvious talents and skills, but also was ruled by some very deep insecurities. The only way to get the maximum value from this staff member was to accommodate these insecurities. The vice president found that to be anathema to his philosophical existence. He told me about conversations he had with his fiance in which she obviously needed to be told that she was pretty and he would not give her that reassurance. He did not want to feed the insecurity. His integrity dictated that he be honest at all times, and that if he couldn't say anything nice his best course of action was to say nothing at all.

Frankly, I give the marriage -- if they even get to the altar -- a year.

While I cannot in good conscience advocate outright lying, I can say that austere honesty is grossly over rated.

When I was acting, my second show was very difficult. It was an original musical that suffered from a lot of backstage politics. It was brutal. I had a lead role, was insecure, and suffered from bad direction. Someone I greatly respected came to one of the preview performances. Afterward he said, "Your make-up looked great."

I knew the show sucked, and I knew that I wasn't good. What I really needed was for my friend to tell me that I was great. It wasn't his sincere analysis of my performance that I needed or wanted at that moment. I needed to be reassured that I would survive that turkey, that he still respected me, and that I wasn't a bad person. By refusing to tell me that I was great, he confirmed my worst fears, that I was morally corrupt hack who had just given his last performance -- ever -- and that he would no longer be associated with me. Now, on a rational level that was not the case, but at an emotionally vulnerable moment that's how a withheld reassuring comment comes across.

Oh, how I wish I was strong enough to hear what was exactly on everyone's mind, and how I could communicate every single thought and opinion, unfiltered, the moment that I have it. But the fact is, I'm not and I can't.

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is a scene in Dangerous Liaisons in which Glenn Close tells John Malkovich how she learned self control while sitting at a dinner table, smiling serenely while digging a fork into her arm. There is such power in that ability.

I have a very readable face. I cannot hide reactions, and I cannot lie on the spot. It's this trait that allows people to believe that I'm not very bright. I wear my state of mind on my sleeve. Yet, I've discovered that there is a way to work that trait to my advantage.

Over Easter my job was becoming an unbearable hell. Everyone I was working with was fighting with everyone else, and they were all coming to me to be the peacekeeper. I needed a break.

So, one morning I got up and sent an e-mail telling them that my uncle had died and that I was in Iowa, taking care of the funeral. I sprinkled it all with details. When I came back, I'd rehearsed the story and could rattle it off effortlessly. By that point I'd decided that my relationship with those people was not going to last much longer, so I had no problem telling a blatant lie. Several weeks later I confessed to one of my colleagues. He was floored that I not only would lie, but that I could lie.

You see, the key to lying, at least for me is you either do it to protect someone you love or you lie to someone you absolutely do not respect. I guess one of the reasons I have such difficulty lying is because I am able to find something to respect in just about everyone. But I don't love enough people to lie diplomatically very often.